Judas in Orthodox Hymnography (Fr. George Metallinos)

 

 

Judas in Orthodox Hymnography 

 

By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos

The figure of Judas is a protagonist in the hymnography of Holy Week. His treacherous attitude is contrasted with the repentant attitude of the “sinful woman" and the confession of love from the thief. The passion of avarice is the main motive for his betrayal of his teacher. A "painful death" becomes the real reward of Judas.

1. Judas in the Hymns of Holy Week

The figure of Judas has occupied Art in all its forms. The same goes for Orthodox hymnography,1 which dissects the Gospel narrative around his person in a vivid and penetrating way. Hymnography constitutes the heart of Orthodox ecclesiastical worship,2 and was the most important poetic creation of Byzantium/Romania.3 In fact, the possibilities offered by poetic discourse make Hymnography the most suitable means for the continuous mystagogy of the ecclesiastical pleroma, with a discourse that is delightful, wrapped in the modest and attractive garment of the ecclesiastical melody.4 The pleroma, listening to or even participating in the chanting of the hymns, experiences and confesses the faith by "weaving from words a melody to the Word."5 Through the poetry of hymns, the worship of Orthodoxy becomes its enduring mouth. The hagiographic and patristic discourse thus becomes the daily song of God's people, who sing their faith and confess it.

The Holy Fathers and Mothers, who compose the hymns, offer through them the theology and theognosis of their hearts purified and illuminated by the Holy Spirit, dipping their pen in the stream of their faith and the tears of their repentance. A mention of the works attributed to Saint Dionysius the Areopagite is important. The poetry and music of Orthodox worship - we read - constitute an "echo" of the heavenly hymnody, which the holy hymnographer (and not just a "poet") hears with his spiritual ears and conveys with the created means available to him in earthly worship. The hymns of the Church are thus understood as a copy of the heavenly "archetype."6 It is not surprising, therefore, that the poetic creations of proven saints, who are also authentic theologians of the Church, enter Orthodox worship.7

Love of Money: The Heavy Sickness of the Soul (Photios Kontoglou)

Love of Money: The Heavy Sickness of the Soul 

By Photios Kontoglou

“Make for yourselves money-bags that do not grow old, an unfailing treasure in the heavens, where no thief comes near” (Luke 12:33)

“The love of money is the root of all evils” (1 Tim. 6:10)

Of all the sicknesses that afflict the human soul, the most disgusting, in my judgment, is love of money, stinginess. From a young age I detested it. And now, although with age I have changed my mind about many things, about stinginess I have not changed. I would rather deal even with a murderer than with a miser. For the murderer may have killed in a surge of soul, in anger, and later repented, whereas the miser is a cold calculator, rotten to the bone. In the murderer you may find some feelings; in the miser you will find none. The miser is of course always selfish, loving only himself, but many times he is a monster worse even than the selfish man, because he may not even love himself, and may let himself die of hunger.

With this, man shows how he can fall into a condition that no other animal reaches. Only he, who called himself “king of the animals,” arrives at such disgusting foolishness that, out of his stinginess, he hides his money in the mattress or the pillow and dies of hunger. Have you ever seen a stingy dog? Or a donkey that has plenty of hay to eat and yet does not touch it, and is found dead from hunger? You see how the miser becomes mad, and indeed the most unpleasant, the most repulsive kind of madman.

Approaching, Receiving and Remaining With the Lord (Great Thursday) - Fr. George Dorbarakis

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

On Great Thursday, our Fathers have handed down to us to celebrate four things: the Sacred Washing of the Feet, the Secret Supper, the Preternatural Prayer, and also the Betrayal of Judas. That hymn which summarizes and connects most of these, highlighting their implications for our own life as well, is especially the Oikos of the Kontakion of Matins of the day:

“At the secret table, approaching with fear, let us all receive the bread with pure souls, remaining with the Master, that we may see how He washes the feet of the disciples and wipes them with a towel, and that we may do likewise as we have seen, submitting to one another and washing one another’s feet. For Christ Himself thus commanded His disciples, as He said beforehand. But Judas, the servant and deceitful one, did not listen.”

1. “Let us all receive the bread”: The Hymnographer, expressing the faith of the Church, calls us to approach the Secret Table in order to partake of the Immaculate Mysteries. We stand before the center of our church, the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, which the Lord Himself established precisely on this day, at the Secret Supper. The Lord at this Supper celebrated for the first time on earth the Divine Liturgy, calling His disciples to eat His holy Body and to drink His precious Blood. “Take, eat, this is My Body” and “Drink of it, all of you, this is My Blood” are the founding words of the mystery of the Holy Eucharist, which from then until now are repeated at every gathering of the faithful, according to the command of the Lord, “Do this in remembrance of Me,” thus perpetuating in the Spirit the Secret Supper itself. The Divine Liturgy is thus understood by our Church as the continuation of the Secret Supper; for this reason it has always been regarded as the center of the Church, around which all the other mysteries are woven. And this is, we could say, natural: the Lord, who came into the world and saved us — in the sense that He united us to Himself and thus reconciled us with God, something that becomes active for the believer from the moment of baptism and chrismation in the name of the Triune God — He Himself nourishes us with His Body and Blood, so that this relationship with Him may be preserved and grow “until we all attain to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

Great Thursday: The Importance of the Mystery of the Divine Eucharist

Archimandrite Kyrillos Kostopoulos, 
Preacher of the Sacred Metropolis of Patras

On Great Thursday, we do not simply commemorate, but we experience — through the Divine Liturgy — the handing down of the Holy and Dread Mysteries by our Lord Jesus Christ to His Disciples, and through them, successively, to the entire Church. Those, however, who have separated themselves from the ONE Church, the Orthodox Church, by distorting the eternal truth and passing over into heresy, have lost the Apostolic succession and at the same time have been cut off from the Mystery of Mysteries, the Divine Eucharist.

As the God-man Lord was dining with His Disciples, He took bread and, after blessing it, said: “Take, eat; this is My body.” Likewise, He took the cup and said: “Drink of it, all of you; for this is My blood” (Matt. 26:26–28). With these same words, from then until now and until the end of the ages, our Holy Church is nourished through the Divine Eucharist. And through this divine food, every Orthodox Christian is united with the God-man Lord and, therefore, with all the other members of His Church.

Homily One on Great Thursday, After the Communion of the Holy Mysteries (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily One on Great Thursday, After the Communion of the Holy Mysteries
 
By Saint Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride

Our Savior and Lord, having given His Body and Blood to the Apostles at the Secret Supper, did not add any instruction to it. What was given was higher than human words, and the mystery itself spoke for itself. I believe that even now, for those among us who have partaken of the Lord’s table not with their lips only, there is no need of instruction: for the most pure Body of the Lord itself teaches them, His most holy Blood itself speaks to them.

What does the Body teach, and what does the Blood say? One thing: Christian, remember the death of your Lord, undertaken for you, and do not betray Him by your life; think and act as He thought and acted; seek in everything the glory of the Heavenly Father; labor tirelessly for the good of your neighbors; struggle against vice and impiety; endure temptations and afflictions with courage; be ready, out of love for truth and righteousness, to carry the cross, and, if necessary, to go to the cross. This is the voice of the Body and Blood of Christ. From the Secret Supper the path leads straight to Gethsemane and to Golgotha.

Homily on Great Thursday, Before the Communion of the Holy Mysteries (St. Innocent of Kherson)

Homily on Great Thursday, Before the Communion of the Holy Mysteries
 
By Saint Innocent, Archbishop of Kherson and Tauride

“My time is at hand; I will keep the Passover at your house with My disciples” (Matt. 26:18).

Thus it was commanded to say to the master of that house in which the Savior intended to perform His last Passover. Who this blessed householder was is not said, and those sent had to recognize him on the spot. For the betrayer was seeking in every way an opportunity to accomplish his design; therefore it was necessary to conceal the place of the Passover until the very time of its celebration. After it was accomplished, without doubt, all learned at whose house it was performed; however, even afterwards not one Evangelist told us the name of the blessed householder. The interpreters of Holy Scripture present various reasons for this concealment. But we also shall not err if we say that the name of this man is passed over in silence because he represents every true follower of Christ.

And especially, brethren, he cannot but represent you, who intend to approach the communion of the Holy Mysteries. You wish to partake of the Passover of the Lord, to receive the Body and Blood of your Savior; and your Savior and Lord wishes to keep the Passover with you, to communicate Himself “most closely” with your spirit and body, to unite Himself with each of you forever. Do not marvel at this and do not consider it some turn of phrase invented by me. The Apostle did not play with words, but spoke the truth, when he wrote that since “the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same” (Heb. 2:14). The Savior and our Lord partook of the flesh and blood of all mankind, by taking upon Himself our nature. But He now wishes to communicate with the spirit, flesh, and blood of each of us; He wishes to make all of us His temple and dwelling, wishes to be the beginning of our life, to occupy our mind and heart. To this very mystical communion I dare to invite you on behalf of the Lord! The words will be mine (if, indeed, we who converse with you have anything of our own), but the thoughts will be taken from His conversations with the disciples. If you are His true disciples, or at least wish to be them, you will not consider them foreign and not belonging to you.

Prologue in Sermons: April 9

Spiritual Fasting

April 9

(Word on Fasting, and on Slander, and on Judgment)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

Some of the simple Christians think that fasting must consist in abstinence from food and drink, and only this. Not to eat fish during the fast or not to partake of oil and wine — by this, in their opinion, the whole commandment of fasting is fulfilled. But is it so? No. To fast bodily, indeed, is necessary, but with bodily abstinence there must necessarily be joined also spiritual fasting. Thus also the Holy Church teaches. She says: “Brethren, let us fast bodily, let us fast also spiritually.”

What then is this spiritual fasting, and why is it necessary?

The Holy Fathers define it thus: “If you fast, show it by your works. What works? Seeing a poor man, have mercy; be reconciled with your enemy; do not envy a man who is in prosperity; do not look upon a woman shining with beauty. Fast without hypocrisy; fast also with the eyes, and with the heart, and with the ears, and with the hands, and with all your members… Restrain the hands from taking what does not belong to you, the feet from going to spectacles; hold back the hearing from listening to slander and falsehood, and let your mouth also fast, refraining from judgment” (Prologue, April 9).

Homily on the Sinful Woman Who Anointed the Lord with Myrrh, and on the Pharisee (St. Amphilochios of Iconium)

Homily on the Sinful Woman Who Anointed the Lord with Myrrh, and on the Pharisee 

Discourse 4

By St. Amphilochios of Iconium

Christ sufficiently delighted us before, dining at the house of Zacchaeus; for where Christ is entertained and reclines together with men and partakes of drink and of table that is ours, all things are transformed into the condition of joy.

For who, whether of tax collectors or of harlots or of those who have worked unspeakable evils, seeing the Maker of heaven and earth having come under a tax collector’s roof, and the Giver of the ears of grain taking bread of men into His hands, and the Provider of the clusters blessing the winepresses by participation in the drink, would not judge the matter to be a feast and a festival?

This is truly a feast, this truly the gladness of an angelic banquet: to see the Master with servants, God with men, the Judge with those under judgment, partaking of a common table.

For this reason He came upon the earth, not having left heaven deserted, and became man, not having stripped off being God, in order that, sailing also upon the sea, He might draw up from the depth of sin those storm-tossed in the sea of life, and going about villages and cities, running through narrow ways and paths and roads, He might lead back to His own flock those wandering at the crossroads like sheep without a shepherd.

Great Wednesday: The Tears of Repentance (Elder Ephraim of Arizona)

 

Great Wednesday: The Tears of Repentance 

By Elder Ephraim of Arizona

Time is constantly shortening; it is continually diminishing. Every day that passes is another step toward death. Know this: even a single tear is equal to a cleansing bath. Just as a bath refreshes the body and washing cleanses a garment, so the tears of a repentant soul purify the heart, purify the mind, purify the body, purify life, purify speech, and even purify every expression of a person.

We should kneel and pray with great humility. To every repentant soul is given a word; it is given enlightened prayer. We see this in the sinful woman of the Gospel on Great Wednesday. How did she, a woman of the streets, know how to pray? Yet from the moment she decided to repent and began to turn toward the light and toward the truth, the spirit of prayer was given to her.

How beautiful are her words before the Savior! She knelt before Him and surely entered into an inner dialogue with Him. With her whole heart she expressed her repentance, because it had been revealed to her that He alone was her Savior and that all others had deceived her. She saw that only Jesus Christ could give her light, relief, joy, and the forgiveness of her many sins.